Hello, I’m Emi.  Today, I want to introduce one of the most impressive movies for me.  The title is Whiplash.  It is an American movie released in 2014 and depicting the relationship between an ambitious jazz student and an abusive instructor.  The story is that a first-year jazz student at the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory in New York, Andrew Neiman tries to become a great drum player such as Buddy Rich.  He meets a teacher, Terence Fletcher and decides to giving up everything but playing the drum.  Through Fletcher’s lesson, Andrew becomes in a mentally tight spot.  Although they have a lot of conflict, Andrew finally plays the drum at a jazz festival with Fletcher.  I think that this movie has three features in terms of music, shots, and color.

First one is music.  We cannot hear any back ground music in this movie.  We can only hear music as it is played by the characters.  It has a lot of scene that Andrew and his mates are practicing, so without any back ground music, the audience can enjoy the music in it.  Also, I think that expect the scene of lesson or practice, the producer tries to emphasize words of characters or other natural sound, so they do not use BGMs.

Second, we can see a feature on how the image is taken.  This movie has a lot of scene without anyone’s face, for example close cuts to the drum, and Andrew’s hands.  These shots tell strong and impressive messages to the audience.  Especially, a scene that shows a drop of Andrew’s sweat on the cymbal was very impressive for me.  It is because the movement is very slow and only by watching the drop, I could imagine how hard he was focusing on playing drum.

Finally, this movie uses a lot of dark color before Andrew plays the drum at a jazz festival.  The studio where Fletcher gives him lesson is gloomy, and the students who are there wears dark color clothes.  Maybe, it implies that Andrew has not succeeded yet or his depressive feelings.  On the other hand, he is spotted on the stage of the jazz festival.  At the scene, he shines and seems very happy and confident to his playing.  Thus, I think this movie uses the color very well to express the character’s feeling.

To conclude, Whiplash is a movie which uses music, close shots and color very effectively, I think.  Although it has some crazy scenes, I want you to watch this movie because it depicts the relationship between Andrew and Fletcher very well.